The Returned
by Brianna Jackson
Summary: "Peeta stares back at Katniss, her at him. The world is still and Peeta thinks about all the times in the past five years he has longed for this moment. The moment they would be reunited, in heaven or in hell, in this life or the next. And here she was." - Based off of The Returned
1. Chapter 1

Hello all!

It's been awhile since you all heard from me. I've been crazy busy and going through a few life changes so I haven't had too much time to write but I finally found some!

I started watched The Returned on Netflix and fell in love with the idea! I archived character death but, um, keep reading and you will see. If there is anything triggering or even the least bit violent, I will always post a warning before hand so no one is caught off guard!

Please let me know what you think.

...

It happens on a Tuesday.

A cold one, the wind chill falling far below normal for an overcast November afternoon in Panem, North Carolina. The sun is just starting to set over the cities square, most of the shops lining Main Street having closed for the evening and the few that were still open are welcoming the last round of customers. Peeta Mellark watches the dinner rush from behind the glass doors of _Mellark's_ , the bakery having closed hours ago when, inevitably, he ran out of goods. Since the incident, it'd been that way; the whole town flocking to see the freak show and buying a few pies while they were at it.

"It's like I'm not even me anymore," Peeta complained once to his parents over a cup of coffee. "They come in to gawk."

His father huffs and his mother shrugs. "Well," she mumbled. "It's good for business."

The flickering streetlights take Peeta back to an easier time. He can recall so vividly the nights he would spend running the streets with his brothers, trying to make it home before his mother caught them out past curfew. They never made it. She would scream, their father would laugh, and in the end, the boys would always avoid being in too much trouble. "Boys being boys," their father would chuckle, his body tired and arms aching. The life of a baker was not an easy one.

"You won't be saying that when we find them dead in the streets," his mother would scold, drawing on about the dangers of the world but Peeta desperately wanted to believe there weren't any. Not in Panem, at least. He was safe in his perfect bubble. For a long time, that was true.

The streetlights stay on after a moment, the sun having officially set over the mountainous back drop, leaving the small town in its shadows.

Life wasn't so easy anymore and it wasn't until this moment that Peeta often felt just how hard it was. If only he could go back to a time when all he worried about was making it home before curfew.

Peeta's life at twenty-eight wasn't too much of what he had imagined for himself. He wasn't a big shot baseball player like he (and most of the town) had hoped. He still lived in Panem, still worked at the bakery. He's single, married to his work and bottles of vodka. He was lonely in all the worst ways. Sad and tired. Mostly tired of being sad. Yet he was making it and Dr. Aurlieus assured him that was something.

He was making it until that fateful Tuesday, that is.

Peeta is taking out the trash when he sees _her_.

He isn't sure it's her at first, his eyesight starting to fail him as he progresses through the years and his antidepressants making his head foggy. Knowing kids from the local high school sometimes roam the streets around this time, he chalks it up to coincidence. Coincidence that someone would look so much like... her.

But the closer Peeta moves, the more her features come to life. Her hair is braided down her back like it always was, a baseball cap keeping the dark tendrils out of her freckled face. Her father's worn down leather jacket is wrapped around her slender body as she picks at the bed of her fingernails without a care in the world. Peeta shuts his eyes _again_ , as tight as humanly possible, like a child wishing bad dreams away, almost positive his mind was playing tricks on him. But when he opens them, she is still there, only now she's looking at 's then that he is sure it's her.

Her eyes, gray and serious with specks of green, wide and open, watching him. _Alive_.

 _Katniss Everdeen._

"Hey you," Katniss greets, smiling slightly. "I thought you might be getting out of work around this time and you'd want to go eat. I'm starved."

Peeta nearly faints, his heart in his throat as his eyes fill with tears. Her voice is so heavenly he wants to fall to his knees and cry. How many years had passed since he last heard it? God, he'd lost count, it'd been so many. Light Years, it felt like. He opens his mouth to speak but there's only air.

"Cat got your tongue?" Katniss jokes, slowly moving toward him. As she walks, she favors her right side, the slight limp that you could only catch if you really payed attention and Peeta was the only one that ever did. He stomach lurches forward.

"This isn't real," Peeta says, shaking his head. He's lost it. He has officially lost it and this is the world imploding on him. He hadn't had hallucinations, at least ones this vivid, in years. He tries to remember what Dr. Aurlieus taught him about his "episodes" and how to deal with them. He closes his eyes and counts to ten, repeating softly all the things he knows to be true.

"My name is Peeta Mellark. I'm twenty-eight years old. I live in Panem, North Carolina. I have two brothers. I have a niece." He pauses, the last truth always the hardest. "Katniss Everdeen is dead."

"Peeta," she, or rather _it_ , whispers. "You're scaring me."

And then her hand laces through his, calming and scaring him all at once. Peeta swats her away before he has a chance to think anything of it. "Get away from me!"

"Peeta!" She cries.

"Who are you?" He demands, grabbing a piece of wood from behind the trashcan. Peeta quickly runs through all the possibilities in his head as he watches her retreat with sad eyes. He comes to two conclusions. He is dead or is dying. Either, at the moment, would be welcome. "Huh! Who are you? Who are you!"

"What do you mean, who am I?" Katniss retorts, retreating with one hand extended, almost as if she was approaching prey. "Peeta, it's me! Katniss!"

"What kind of sick joke is this, huh!" He yells, rushing towards her again. She stumbles to the ground in an effort to retreat. "Who are you? _Who are YOU?_ "

"Have you lost your mind? It's Katniss! Katniss Everdeen! _Your girlfriend_!"

"No!" Peeta screams again, no longer too concerned with keeping the tears at bay and more concerned with what kind of mental break he was having. "That's impossible."

"Impossible?"

"Impossible!"

"How is it impossible?" She questions, crossing her arms, a gesture so familiar to Peeta he almost faints. "I'm here. I'm right here!"

"It's impossible because I buried you!" Peeta cries, wailing like a wounded child. His voice echoes off the bricks, his declaration playing in his mind a million times before, at last, there is quiet. He can no longer support his weight, his legs crumbling beneath him as he rests his head in his hands.

Peeta cries in a way he hadn't in over two years. The pain, though always there, had subsided significantly in the recent months. He no longer felt like the air was being sucked out of his lungs and was finally at the point where he could say her name without having an anxiety attack. He was healing. Or so he thought.

"It's an episode. I'm having an episode."

Peeta stares back at Katniss, her at him. The world is still and Peeta thinks about all the times in the past five years he has longed for this moment. The moment they would be reunited, in heaven or in hell, in this life or the next. And here she was.

"Am I dead?" Peeta finally asks when he finds his voice. "Did I fall? Did something happen to me?"

Katniss doesn't speak, looking as scared of him as he does of her. Her eyes glisten with tears and she shakes her head slowly. "I… I don't know. I don't think so. Am I?"

He feels a wave of nausea pass through him, the way it always does when he has to answer this question. The weight on his shoulders is one he wants to crumble under. He closes his eyes, willing himself to stay upright.

"Am I dead?" She asks with a little less hesitation.

"You're supposed to be," Peeta mumbles.

"But I'm not." It isn't a question but it should be. Because Katniss Everdeen stood before him _alive_. Breathing, colorful, and untouched. Peeta hadn't seen her that way — in person or in his dreams — in years.

"I must be having a psychotic break," he says. Katniss sits on a pile of trash, her legs outstretched. "I'm having a psychotic break. You're a figment of my imagination. That or I'm dying and this is how I get to heaven."

"Which would you prefer?"

"What?"

"Would you rather be having a psychotic break or dying?"

"Dying." It takes no time at all for him to come to that conclusion. Death would be so much sweeter than the alternative. In death he would get to spend forever with Katniss and, truly, that is all Peeta Mellark has ever wanted.

"Well I don't think you're dying," Katniss concludes. "But I don't think you're having a psychotic break either."

"Then how do you explain this?" Peeta explodes, causing her to jump. Her head collides with the metal trashcan, loud enough to cause attention but, for once, there isn't any. "Shit, let me see."

"It didn't hurt," she mumbles as Peeta combs through her hair, feeling for any soft spots or knots. "You shouldn't yell so much. I don't remember you yelling so much."

"What do you remember?" He asks, taking a seat beside her.

He can smell the soft scent of wood on her skin that follows her everywhere. For months after the incident, the smell haunted him. It was trapped in his sheets, in his clothes, in his apartment. His mother finally had the apartment cleaned and her smell went with it. "You need to be rid of that girl," she said. "You need to move on, Peeta, and it doesn't help if she is still here with you."

His mother was right and after a few weeks he forgot the smell entirely. But now it was back, intertwined with day old trash, and he hadn't realized just how much he'd missed it.

"Nothing," Katniss says after a moment of reflection. "We were supposed to go to a bar tonight, right? With Finnick and Annie. Capital, was it?"

Peeta stomach lurches forward. Something in his face must give him away. "Did we ever make it to Capital?"

Her breath is so warm, her eyes so familiar, Peeta just takes a moment to look at her. Her lips are still coated in cherry chapstick, her face free of makeup except for the smallest bit of mascara. She's just the way he remembered her. Twenty-two and lively.

"Answer my question, Peeta."

And bossy.

"We made it."

He can't say anymore. He's never been able to.

Katniss looks down at her own hands, tracing the ridges and valleys of her palms like a child. Then, suddenly, she pricks herself with a shard of glass lying on the ground. And there is blood.

"Katniss, what the hell are you doing?" Peeta cries, grabbing ahold of the wound. "You could get an infection. You don't know where that thing has been!"

"Oh c'mon, Peeta," she mumbles. "I'm already dead. What's the worst that could happen?"

It's a joke but it's not funny.

"So I guess I'm picking up where we left off, huh?" Katniss concludes, her brow creasing, her eyes solemn. "Do I scare you?"

"Yes," Peeta answers honestly, wrapping her hand in a piece of his apron. "I don't know what you are."

"I don't know what I am either. But I feel like me."

Peeta nods. "You look like you."

"And I bleed."

"And you bleed."

"And you're sure I was dead? Like really, really dead."

He fights back the knot in his throat and nods. "I've never been so sure of anything in my life."

"Well goodness," Katniss sighs. "How are we going to explain this? What do we do? I should probably go to a hospital."

Peeta nods. "You should. Or maybe I should. We shouldn't rule out the possibility that I've lost my fucking mind."

"Or maybe I'm haunting you," she laughs. It isn't funny, it really isn't being the situation they're in, but Peeta laughs too, for the first time in a long time. She grabs his hand in hers. It's warm. "But here. I'm here. And you're there. And somehow this is happening."

Peeta still wasn't convinced this was more than a dream. Or maybe it was a nightmare. He was sure he'd wake up any minute, propelled by his own internal alarm clock and damned to another day on this earth without Katniss. But the two sit there for hours and nothing happens. And when the clock strikes midnight in the town square, and Katniss is still there holding his hand, he's sure he's not dreaming.

"You'll need to be up in four hours," she reminds him softly. His throat is so dry he can't respond. "You should go home. Get some sleep."

"I'm not leaving you," Peeta mumbles, scared that if she leaves, even for a moment, he'll never see her again. "I can't."

Katniss doesn't try to fight him on it and they spend another hour in silence. Finally, she speaks. "Peeta, what happened to me?"


	2. Chapter 2

*Five Years Ago*

"To a new adventure!" Finnick is on his sixth toast of the night, the open bar and unlimited whiskey's making him even more obnoxious than usual. "Peeta, you stealthy motherfucker! I don't know how you managed to pull this one off!"

Peeta laughs steadily, throwing an arm around his best friend and wondering the same. How did he manage to get Katniss-fucking-Everdeen to agree to marry him? He thought it'd never happen. After being together for almost six years, talks about marriage were still something she avidly avoided. That was until one afternoon when he caught her browsing through a bridal magazine in the middle of the grocery store.

"What do you got there?" Peeta asked, snatching _Bride_ from between her fingers. Wedding dresses. She'd tagged a few.

"I beg your pardon," Katniss scolded, staring at him from underneath her dark lashes. "I let you do your shopping, you let me do my reading."

Peeta didn't push her any farther, knowing saying anything else would inevitably make her crawl back into the shell he'd worked so hard to get her out of. Instead, he simply texted Finnick. _She's looking at a bridal magazine._

 _I'll take the ring out of the drawer,_ he replied in less than a minute.

It had taken Peeta six months of planning to muster up the courage to actually ask her. "You need to man the fuck up and just do it already," Finnick had cursed over a game of Madden one Sunday night. "Keeping the secret from Annie is the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

When the time was right, and Peeta was one hundred percent sure when that was, Finnick had done his part as his best friend and Best Man, and spent the last week planning them an engagement party. The first of many, Peeta was assured. "This is too much, man," he had said, reviewing his plans and spreadsheets. "We could just have something here at the house. Something lowkey."

"Are you kidding me?" Finnick scoffed. "You're my best friend, Peet, and the closest thing I have to a brother. Besides, you have been in love with Katniss since we were kids and now you get to marry her? You better believe this is about to be the party of a lifetime!"

Peeta knew fighting him was useless. He wasn't sure he'd ever told him, but Finnick may have been the second best thing to ever happen to him.

So tonight was a night of celebration. Eleven days ago, he had asked Katniss Everdeen to marry him and, by the grace of God, she'd said yes.

Peeta watches her from across the room, her hair down for once, the black dress she's wearing all too enthralling for a night out in public. She laughs with Annie and drinks with Johanna, so light and happy. He doesn't know how it's possible to love anyone so much and he's not sure how he got so lucky. Peeta Mellark had met his soulmate. Even greater, he got to marry her.

"Enough with the bedroom eyes, Mellark," Cato calls. "Let's drink!"

"I think I've had enough with drinking for the night," he says politely, handing his shot to Thom who takes it readily, the poor boy still underage. "I still have to make love to my beautiful wife!"

They all groan in protest, especially Katniss's childhood friend, Gale, who covers his ears obnoxiously with his hands. "Enough, enough," he begs. "I'm ready to make a speech so let's do the damn thing so you can get on your way."

It isn't enough for his friends to gather the attention of the group but Finnick commands the whole room to listen to the carefully constructed speech he wrote, full of stories and hand gestures, declarations of love and admiration, and finally a toast to "the most perfect couple to ever walk this earth". Katniss cries and Peeta would be lying if he said he kept a dry eye the _entire_ time. And as nice as everything is, he wants to go home, sit on the couch, and be with Katniss.

"We have to say something," Katniss mumbles through sobs during Thom's drunken rambling. "I wasn't aware this was happening or I would have prepared something but we have to thank everybody. I mean the whole bar is quiet for us."

"Okay, then after this you'll go up there and say something. I'll be right beside you," he promises, running a hand through her hair.

"No," she whispers, her eyes widening in fear. "You know I'm not good at saying anything. You do the talking and I will stand behind you like the supportive wife I am."

"Wife? Engaged ain't married, Everdeen," Peeta jokes.

"Okay, Michael Scott. Now's your time to shine!"

Naturally, as it always had been, Peeta does the talking and Katniss smiles. "Katniss and I just wanted to thank you all for coming and joining us on our special day. We haven't even gotten married yet but we feel so much love and excitement in this room from everyone here, encouraging us, loving us, and supporting us. I have been in love with Katniss Everdeen since I was five years old and I will love her for the rest of my days. I'm glad I've gotten to share that love with you all because I know I'm not the only one. We look forward to a long, happy life together with all of you here tonight. Cheers and get home safe!"

The bar cheers and the future Mellark's bid everyone a goodnight. "Get all the hot sex in now because once you start popping out those babies, it all goes down the fucking drain," Johanna says with a smile.

"I'll take your word for it," Katniss jokes, winding her arm through Peetas'. The two walk down the crowded streets of Durham silently in a way only they could, content just breathing the same air. He can't help but think about how he gets this for the rest of his life. Katniss is the first to speak. "Do you think what Johanna said was true? About all the hot sex being gone once you have kids?"

He shrugs. "I don't know. I've never had kids."

"You know what I mean."

"Of course not, Katniss," Peeta smiles. "Sex is about love and, I'm sure when we have children there will be some times when sex is the last thing we have on our minds but we have to remember that is not a forever feeling. People get tired and life gets tough. But I love you, you love me. I'm sure we'll find time for it."

"I was talking about hot sex," Katniss says, moving behind him to wrap her hands around his waist. Peeta smirks. "Hot, dirty, roll around-"

"Get on the floor!"

Katniss's hands freeze around his waist, moving slowly so she can clench his bicep as the loud voice behind them moves closer. Peeta really isn't sure what's happening and, at first, he thinks it's one of the partygoers throwing a not-so-funny joke on them. In fact, he's almost sure of it so when he turns around and there's a gun pointed in his face, he isn't quite sure how to react.

"Whoa, man!" He yells, instantly throwing his body in front of Katniss. He's large enough to completely cover her, his arms holding her so tightly to his own body, he can feel her erratic heartbeat against his own.

"Hand over your wallets!" The masked man shakes, the gun in his hand rattling as he tries to steady himself. Seeing this, Peeta softens. This man isn't trying to hurt anyone, he concludes. He's just as scared as they are. Regardless, Peeta hands over his wallet and Katniss carefully hands him her purse. "You, stand beside him."

Peeta grabs ahold of her wrist, steadying her back in place when she tries to move. "She's not going anywhere, man. You have your money, just go. We can't see your face, there's a couple hundred dollars in that wallet. Just go!"

"I said move!" He screams, once again aiming the gun at Peeta. He takes a deep breath. "This isn't a negotiation. Move or I shoot you!"

"Peeta, it will be fine," Katniss mumbles steadily, her voice betraying her body. She stands strong but her eyes shake. She moves beside him and laces their fingers together.

"I want the ring." Katniss's eyes widen, her hand going to grip the carefully crafted diamond ring on her left hand. She opens her mouth to respond but closes it immediately. "I said I want the ring bitch!"

"Don't fucking talk to her like that!" Peeta retorts.

"Peeta! Shut up!" Katniss scolds, tears streaming down her face. Her eyes search for somebody, anybody, but the streets are free of people, most already retired for the night, and the few that still crawl through the streets too drunk to notice anything out of the ordinary. "Don't get yourself killed, please."

"Listen to your girl, man," he says, turning his attention to Katniss. "Now give me the ring. What did you pay for that? Ten thousand? Where does a young guy like you get the money for a beautiful ring like that?"

"Bet you could do just as well with a job. You know, instead of being a felon."

"Peeta, shut the fuck up!" Katniss cries. She clutches her ring to her chest, shaking her head with tears streaming down her face. "Just shut up."

"Give me the ring."

"No," she whispers, so low that Peeta almost misses it. His eyes shift over to her. "No."

"Katniss," Peeta growls, moving his body in front of her ever so slightly. "Katniss, give him the ring. I will get you another one. I promise. Give him the-"

"It took you months to design this and years to save for it," she mumbles, tearfully recalling the long conversation they had about the significance behind the diamonds on her left hand. "You told me yourself, you've been saving for this ever since you started working at the bakery. This is our love, this is us. Some punk isn't going to take that away from us."

"Katniss I will-"

"Give me the ring NOW!" The gun suddenly shifts out of Peeta's general direction to Katniss who looks unfazed by the heavy machinery in her face. Peeta jumps, almost immediately, moving towards the attacker to take things into his own hands but it's too late.

He isn't really sure what happens next, only that he manages to knock the kid — and it was a kid — off of his feet and onto his back but not soon enough.

The gun goes off twice.

There's a silence that fills the air shortly after the shots ring out, a soft silence and Peeta thinks he's dying. The shot echoes off the wall of the alleyway until there is nothing but ringing in his ears.

After a moment, he starts to hear commotion. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the lights turn on in the buildings above, a few people poke their heads around the corner of the brownstones. He breathes a sigh of relief. Help.

He registers the pain in his leg but only for a moment. He's sitting in something sticky, something warm. Blood. Panicked, he searches for Katniss through the black spots crowding his vision. He's losing blood and losing it fast but he knows there will be relief once he knows she's safe.

It takes him a second but Peeta fights through his haze until he finds her still figure. Katniss lies silently on her side, her left hand clutching her stomach, blood spewing through her fingers as she tries desperately to stop her own bleeding. And that's when Peeta realizes the worst fact of all. The blood he's lying in isn't his. It's hers.

"Katniss," he calls, dragging his limp body to where she lay. He can hear the police sirens in the distance, hear the footsteps of others that are just a little too late. "Katniss, I'm here."

Peeta carefully rolls her body over, replacing her hand with his own. Her eyes are glassy, her lips blue. All the life she had not five minutes ago was going, fleeting, and he worried he'd never see it again. "Katniss. Katniss, I'm here. Stay awake."

Katniss nods her head slowly. "It doesn't hurt. That's bad, right?"

Peeta shakes. "You're fine."

"I'm not," she answers stubbornly. "I wasn't going to give him the ring."

Peeta wants to fight her on it but he can't, knowing he would've done the same thing if roles were reversed. "You're fine."

"Your leg," she points out, not strong enough to raise her hand. "You'll bleed out. You need to stop the blood."

"I have better things to worry about."

"Peeta, I haven't told Prim I'm getting married."

"Well, you'll get to. Tomorrow, remember? We're going home tomorrow."

"I'm not too sure I'll make that trip," she replies tearfully. "I didn't get to tell her."

"They already know, Katniss," Peeta soothes, running a hand through her hair. "I went to talk to your dad. I'm sure they already know."

"I didn't know you did that," Katniss whispers, her voice so soft he can barely hear her. "He loves you. They all do. But I still want to tell them."

"You will. You'll tell them tomorrow," he replies, trying so hard to just stop the bleeding but it just won't _fucking_ stop. "You'll tell them tomorrow."

"Don't leave me, okay?" Katniss cries, tears falling from the corners. "Peeta, please don't leave me."

Peeta sobs, as she begins to shake. "Help!" He screams. "Help!"

"You'll be alright, Peeta. Okay?" She laughs. "You'll be fine and-"

" _Stop_ ," he screams, feeling as if his head might explode. "You're not going to leave me. Not alone."

"You won't be alone," she promises. "Peeta, you'll never be alone."

He isn't sure what happens next. Her eyes start to drift close the way they tend to do when she's really tired. She licks her lips once, maybe twice, and suddenly they aren't so blue. He says I love you, at least he hopes he does, but there is so much ringing in his ears he can't even hear his own thoughts. Then there's black. Just black.

…

He wakes up two days later with a headache and one leg.

The bullet was lodged in an artery. His foot wasn't getting any blood and, by the time the paramedics arrived, there was a steady amount of bacteria in his bloodstream. They tried absolutely everything but there was nothing more to be done. They amputated just below the knee. A prosthetic would be easy to fit in a year. Peeta Mellark would be fine.

Katniss Everdeen was dead — DOA. The doctors tell Peeta and his parents together. The bullet had pierced her through her abdomen and she succumbed to her injuries almost instantly. She wasn't in any pain, they promise. It was quick and her body is in the morgue, waiting to be transported to the funeral home where she will be buried per the family's request.

"The Everdeen's have given you access to the morgue if you wish to see her one last time," the doctor whispers. "We can take you down there if you're feeling well enough."

Peeta nods, his throat so tight he thinks he might suffocate. He wishes he would.

"Do you have any questions, Mr. Mellark?"

"Just one. Why didn't you guys just leave me to bleed out on the street?"

"Peeta," his father scolds, hardly able to contain his own tears. Wheaton is so distraught he has to leave the room and Rye can hardly stand. His mother is silent and that is worst of all.

"It would've been easier."

The nurses wheel him down to the morgue, alone, where she lays under a blue towel like you see in the movies. He sits behind the glass for a few moments, the doctors talking medical jargon that he can't understand, their words not affecting him as much as the cold body on the table. Peeta vomits profusely for twenty minutes and the nurses almost wheel him back up to his room but he manages to get it together before any drastic steps need to be taken. They too have tears in their eyes.

They pull the curtain back and it's almost as if she's sleeping. He'd seen her serene face in this kind of peace so many times, wrapped in his arms as he wished the ills of the world away. Katniss was beautiful. She always had been, she always would be. That he was sure. He reaches out to touch her arm, mapping the freckles on her shoulder and connecting them with the ones that run up and down her neck. He imagines kissing them, the way he would if she really were just sleeping.

"Where's her ring?" Peeta asks one of the nurses, toying with her stiff fingers.

"With the family," she answers. Her voice catches. "She was holding onto it when the paramedics arrived. They wanted to be the ones to return it to you."

Peeta nods, in this moment knowing only one thing to be true. He wishes he was dead too.

He sits with her for two hours. Eventually, his father joins him then his brothers. His mother waits outside in the waiting room.

"Mr. Mellark," the nurse calls from behind the screen. Peeta doesn't flinch. "Mr. Mellark, the men from the funeral home are here and they have to take the body now."

"I can't leave her," Peeta replies, the first words he's said in hours. His throat burns. "I can't leave her."

"There will be another viewing," she replies softly. "But we can't keep her here. The family wants her moved."

For the first time, Peeta thinks about the Everdeen's. At last, he can't keep his grief at bay.

Grabbing ahold of her soft hand, he kisses the skin on her wrist, relishing in the feeling one last time. His father has to pull him away, whispering his condolences as he pries Peeta's hands away from Katniss' body. "Son, we have to go. We have to go."

"I can't leave her," Peeta yells, moving to stand but failing miserably. Oh right. He'd lost his fucking leg.

He hits the cold hard ground, praying to God he'd done enough damage to join her.


End file.
